Para que desta vez seja diferente

Abstract

This paper takes for granted that the Brazilian economy is already recovering. Therefore, economic policy debate should focus on which requirements the economic model should meet to ensure that a bold process of development will follow the recovery, avoiding the curse of quasi-stagnation of the last decades. Some general proposals are made at the end of the paper, based upon the hypothesis that the main cause of the deep recession of the last three years was the inconsistency of the economic model put in place since the mid-2000. This model, based on the commodity-producing sectors, led to the deindustrialization of the Brazilian economy. On the macroeconomic side, the model was based on policies to boost domestic demand, leading to intense currency appreciation and an increasingly large current account deficit to reconcile aggregate demand and supply.